Cricket

Tamper tantrum

A complicated game gets even trickier

CRICKET'S laws, which date back to 1744, have long puzzled the uninitiated. But on August 20th even fans discovered a hitherto unknown but rather important rule: that a team can forfeit a game by sulking.

This happened towards the end of the fourth day of a match played in London between England and Pakistan. During the afternoon the umpires decided that the visiting team had been tampering with the ball, and added five runs to England's score. In a huffy response, Pakistan refused to restart play promptly after the interval for tea. (Cricket still revolves around meals rather than the whims of television viewers.) After a while, the umpires decided that Pakistan's tantrum had cost it the match.

Rules about tampering are complicated. Players may polish the ball on their clothes or dry it with a towel. They can also remove dirt from the seam that occurs where the two halves of the ball are sewn together. But picking at the ball, scuffing it on the ground or applying anything other than spit or sweat are not on. Rahul Dravid, an Indian batsman, was once fined for shining a ball with saliva while munching on a sweet.

If the rules on tampering are odd, most players nonetheless know when they are cheating. The same cannot be said of some other cricket laws. For example, a bowler must bowl the ball to the batsman, but he cannot throw it. The difference? It's all in “the degree of elbow extension, as opposed to hyperextension/adduction,” according to the International Cricket Council, which regulates international games. Just in case that's not clear, it employs a team of “human-movement specialists” to decide when a bowler is a chucker.

Happily, any player who is judged to have broken the laws or the spirit of the game can, according to the council, appeal to “the principle of natural justice”. This time Pakistan is convinced justice is on its side.